David K. Leff

David K. Leff is an essayist, Pushcart Prize nominated poet and former deputy commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. He is the author of six nonfiction books, three volumes of poetry and a novel in verse. His 2016 book, Canoeing Maine’s Legendary Allagash: Thoreau, Romance and Survival of the Wild won a silver medal in the Nautilus Book Awards for memoir and a silver medal in the Independent Publisher Book Awards for regional nonfiction. In 2016-2017 the National Park Service appointed him poet-in-residence for the New England National Scenic Trail (NET). David’s journals, correspondence, and other papers are archived at the University of Massachusetts Libraries in Amherst. His work is available at www.davidkleff.com

David is a trustee of Great Mountain Forest in Norfolk, Connecticut and on the Collections Steering Committee of the Connecticut Historical Society. He has served on the boards of the Riverwood Poetry Series, Connecticut Forest and Park Association, the Connecticut Maple Syrup Producers Association and Audubon Connecticut. He has taught nature poetry at the famed Sunken Garden Poetry Festival, the Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford, the Emily Dickinson Museum and elsewhere. David has been a contest judge for the Connecticut Poetry Society and given poetry readings at venues throughout the state. He has lectured on environmental and historical topics, the craft of writing, and other subjects on college campuses, at conferences, for annual meetings and at other events. David is the town meeting moderator and town historian in his hometown of Canton, Connecticut where he has also served 26 years as a volunteer firefighter and in other civic activities.